Tag: Fictions

NOT ALL AWAKENINGS ARE RUDE – but some may as well be.

Prosatio Silban stretched, yawned, sat up, and contemplated the interior of the curtained sleeping-berth tucked into his galleywagon’s rear. Something is amiss, he thought. But what?

His inquisitive glances took in the bookshelf above his feet, on which perched a dog-eared edition of Barbatus the Elder’s Truth, Life, and Other Comic Futilities; the ceiling-mounted fatberry-oil lamp; the small, diamond-paned window set high in the galleywagon’s aft wall; and the full-length black silk curtain screening him from the rest of the kitchen-cum-vehicle. Nothing seemed out of place.

Then it hit him like an ice-bolt through his chest: What is that wretched stench? Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Tainted Wind”

PROSATIO SILBAN HAD TO LOOK twice before he realized what he was seeing. Why is this Xao woman, he asked himself, dressed as an Uulian?

It was a fair question. The Xao were almost the oldest original residents of the Exilic Lands, whose mythology had prepared them to regard (some would say worship) the late-arrived Uulians as prophesied saviors – who would restore to pristineness their oblivion-shattered realms before sailing back across the Rimless Sea. Although the “saviors” did transform the landscape as foretold, centuries passed without their fulfilling the latter prediction; as a result, some of the indigenes lost faith in their people’s teachings.

Others had found ways to cope. Including, it seemed, by assimilation. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Boundary Crossers”

IT BEGAN, AS DO SO many seriously frivolous matters, with an impassioned tavern-boast.

“Outside of present company, the best cookery in the Uulian Commonwell is found not in epicurean Pormaris but in its provinces,” burly, wise-eyed Apista Thurtok said. “And the best meal is roasted fidget-hen basted in honeywine, made at The Bouncing Wench in Yellow Meadows. And that is the final word.”

“The Soup Demons it isn’t!” rejoined the wiry and emphatic Olto Grex. “It’s One in Silver’s inwards-stew in Crows’ Path.” Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Gourmet Gallivant”

“YOURS IS A NOBLE CALLING,” Prosatio Silban said. “Pray, what is its secret?”

The waiter from the acclaimed restaurant Tide & Time had just finished his breakfast of poached fidget-hen eggs, salt-cod-and-potato hash, and stone-rye toast. He took a last sip of hot yava, swallowed, set down his cup, and smiled. Continue reading “Service (A Prosatio Silban Amuse Bouche)”

“HIS NAME IS FIRENZO OOBAHR,” Firenzo Ebli said. “And he needs to find himself. Please – let it be in your employ.”

Prosatio Silban put on his most polite face. “I am honored that you thought of me, but I am not certain that I am the one to help your son,” he said. “I have always worked alone, and to be frank, there is little room in my galleywagon for more than one cook. I am afraid that we would get in each other’s way – the more so, since he won’t know what he or I am doing.” Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Friend’s Favor”

MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN OF the nomadic Xao, one of three peoples descended from the Exilic Lands’ original inhabitants. But of their sundered cousins, the forest-dwelling Xai, few tales have been told – and fewer still are those outsiders who have visited their native home and returned with tales of their own.

As was his longstanding habit when his coin jar became heavy, Prosatio Silban and his dray-beast Onward were taking their ease by meandering through someplace unfamiliar to either of them: in this case, the vast and light-dappled Greenlanes, north of the Uulian Commonwell. From the forest’s flat, leaf-carpeted floor sprouted tall and variegated stands of spirewood, teal cypress, half-moon bay, and many other trees the cook-errant couldn’t identify. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Game Game”

DESPITE ITS GENERAL ALLURE, IMMORTALITY isn’t necessarily suitable for everyone.

“To the point: You shall live forever as the centerpiece of my next theatrical work, The Cook For Any Price; or, A Delicious Wage,” Amaeus Tozar said, raising his yava-mug for emphasis. “Nothing more, and nothing less. And I will not allow you to decline.” Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Wicked Stage”

SOMETIMES, THE MOST RANDOM OF encounters can also be the most memorable.

Prosatio Silban was driving his galleywagon high on the switchback road between Mountainfoot and Overlook, and passing the time by whistling selections from Orcio Phatar’s famous musical suite, Grand Dreams Delayed. The early afternoon was as perfect as one could wish – warm sun, passing clouds, exquisite view, lazy drone of distant sapphire-bees – but the worried cook-errant paid scant attention.

If I don’t arrive by sunset, my would-be patron will not be pleased, he thought. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Poet’s Souvenir”

“WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT element of the Perfect Meal?” someone once asked Prosatio Silban.

“The company,” came his reply.

“But cannot one have a perfect meal by oneself?” his inquisitor persisted.

The cook-errant thought for a moment. “Only if that one,” he said with a smile, “is at One.”

IT WAS AS BEAUTIFUL, BREEZY, and otherwise uneventful a day as any in the Three Cities and Thousand Villages of the Uulian Commonwell, save for one particular: the long queues of people, in every settlement of any size, waiting their turn for the Decennial Tally.

Prosatio Silban’s galleywagon was parked in the rustic riverside village of Frogbottom, near the end of the human line that stretched to the Tabulators sitting at a wooden table. The two bored-looking, guard-flanked officials, wrapped in the tricolor robes of Commonwell bureaucrats, asked each person the same three questions: “Name?” “Age?” “Occupation?” This slow parade of individuals, couples, and families had been going on all morning and looked as if it would continue into the afternoon as well. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Counting Time”

SITTING ON THE SODDEN DRIVER’S bench of his tilted and storm-mired galleywagon, warm rain dribbling into crevices public and private, Prosatio Silban briefly flirted with his own demise.

The impulse, though not its brevity, was the oldest of his three reflexive reactions to unanticipated misfortune. But neither giddy laughter nor philosophical resignation seemed suited to the billowing mist soaking his body and soul, so dense that the plaited yak-hair reins in his left hand stretched tautly forward into apparent nothingness.

The Cook For Any Price sighed and shook his head before calling a single hoarse syllable into the all-enclosing grey wall before him. Continue reading “Brokedown Palate (A Prosatio Silban Tale)”

SMALL KINDNESSES CAN OVERCOME GREAT cruelties, as Prosatio Silban discovered one day to his everlasting pleasure.

The circumstances began with the beefy cook reflecting on yet another boisterous morning crowd surrounding his painted menu-board in the Itinerants’ Quarter of Pormaris’ famous South Marketplace. If only there were some way to serve my clientele without their jostling each other for primacy, he thought. I am grateful for their coin – but my board, and seating, is not up to their numbers. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Amazing Replicator”